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Monday, September 26, 2011

Confessions of a Pearl Jam Addict

When I was a teenager, I had a couple dreams where Eddie Vedder told me what to do with my life. Literally, he came to me in a dream and told me something I needed to hear. The same thing happened with a dream featuring Nick Flynn last summer. After seeing Cameron Crowe's documentary PEARL JAM TWENTY last night I have been thinking non-stop about these artists that I hold so high up in my heart. I was never the screaming crying crazed fan, more of the listen to their albums on repeat for hours after school through grammar school, high school, college and all of my twenties. I could not afford tickets to concerts, but moreso I think I was pretty sure I wouldn't be allowed to go. But for my 16th birthday, a good friend got me tickets to my first Pearl Jam concert. After taking a break from touring, the band came to Los Angeles in 1998. Click here for that amazing set list. At one point, Eddie, pointed directly at me and I literally felt like I was floating. I didn't see them again for a long time, like ten years long time...until Mike surprised me with tickets to the show in Camden New Jersey in 2008! (Set list here) I danced and sang my heart out for hours, perhaps the most truest form of therapy ever. Seeing their history over the last twenty years was incredibly moving. I left feeling so inspired but also a bit disappointed in myself that I am not more fearless. It made me want to quit everything and travel the world. It made me want to get out of the rat race, you know, stick it to the man, and in the words of Vedder, "ride the wave where it takes me." But when I got home, Mike reminded me of all the places I have traveled to this year alone (Vermont, Colorado, New Orleans, Vegas, LA, Lake George, Ithaca, Puerto Rico, Provincetown, the Jersey Shore and I'm not done yet...) and how in my own way I am riding that wave. I may not be going to Singapore any time soon and I don't see me in front of 60,000 people in my near future either. But, it was nice to get that kick in the ass, that reminder of what it really takes to have guts. Not to mention I got to listen to hours of my favorite music on the planet in a small theatre in New York. It may not be a concert, but in its own small way, it felt like one.

1 comment:

yes mike! i agree. hard to see for the forest for the trees....i just read someone else's blog today that said about her dreams "(blah blah blah)... with the hope that perhaps, someday, gradually, without even noticing it… I’ll be living it."

i think that happens to us. we forget or are unable to see what we have already accomplished